that consumes us, and which is every day augmenting. Our misery has lasted many ages. The world is lost. Vice overflows all things like a mortal poison.”1

Thus we see that the Chinese are no strangers to the doctrine of original sin. It is their invariable belief that man is a fallen being; admitted by them from time immemorial.

The inhabitants of Madagascar had a legend similar to the Eden story, which is related as follows:

"The first man was created of the dust of the earth, and was placed in a garden, where he was subject to none of the ills which now affect mortality; he was also free from all bodily appetites, and though surrounded by delicious fruit and limpid streams yet felt no desire to taste of the fruit or to quaff the water The Creator, had, moreover, strictly forbid him either to eat or to drink. The great enemy, however, came to him, and painted to him, in glowing colors, the sweetness of the apple, and the lusciousness of the date, and the succulence of the orange."

After resisting the temptations for a while, he at last ate of the fruit, and consequently fell.'

A legend of the Creation, similar to the Hebrew, was found by Mr. Ellis among the Tahitians, and appeared in his "Polynesian Researches." It is as follows:

After Taarao had formed the world, he created man out of area, red earth, which was also the food of man until bread was made. Taarao one day called for the man by name. When he came, he caused him to fall asleep, and while he slept, he took out one of his ivi, or bones, and with it made a woman, whom he gave to the man as his wife, and they became the progenitors of mankind. The woman's name was Ivi, which signifies a bone."

The prose Edda, of the ancient Scandinavians, speaks of the "Golden Age" when all was pure and harmonious. This age lasted until the arrival of woman out of Jotunheim-the region of the giants, a sort of "land of Nod"-who corrupted it.*

In the annals of the Mexicans, the first woman, whose name was translated by the old Spanish writers, "the woman of our flesh,' is always represented as accompanied by a great male serpent, who seems to be talking to her. Some writers believe this to be the tempter speaking to the primeval mother, and others that it is intended to represent the father of the human race. This Mexican Eve is represented on their monuments as the mother of twins."

1 See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. pp. 208-210. The Pentateuch Examined, vol. iv. pp. 152, 153, and Legends of the Patriarchs, p. 38.

* Legends of the Patriarchs, p. 31.

* Quoted by Müller: The Science of Relig., p. 802.

4 See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 409.

See Baring Gould's Legends of the Patriarchs; Squire's Serpent Symbol, p. 161, and Wake's Phallism in Ancient Religions, p.

41.

Mr. Franklin, in his "Buddhists and Jeynes," says:

"A striking instance is recorded by the very intelligent traveler (Wilson), regarding a representation of the Fall of our first parents, sculptured in the magnificent temple of Ipsambul, in Nubia. He says that a very exact representation of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden is to be seen in that cave, and that the serpent climbing round the tree is especially delineated, and the whole subject of the tempting of our first parents most accurately exhibited."

Nearly the same thing was found by Colonel Coombs in the South of India. Colonel Tod, in his "Hist. Rajapoutana," says:

"A drawing, brought by Colonel Coombs from a sculptured column in a cavetemple in the South of India, represents the first pair at the foot of the ambrosial tree, and a serpent entwined among the heavily-laden boughs, presenting to them some of the fruit from his mouth. The tempter appears to be at that part of his discourse, when

4

his words, replete with guile,

Into her heart too easy entrance won:

Fixed on the fruit she gazed.'

“This is a curious subject to be engraved on an ancient Pagan temple.”

So the Colonel thought, no doubt, but it is not so very curious after all. It is

work of Montfaucon," represents one of these ancient

fect being, and is now only a fallen and broken remnant of what he once was, we have seen to be a piece of mythology, not only unfounded in fact, but, beyond intelligent question, proved untrue. What, then, is the significance of the exposure of this myth? What does its loss as a scientific fact, and as a portion of Christian dogma, imply? It implies that with it—although many Christian divines who admit this to be a legend, do not,

1 Quoted by Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i.

p. 403.

2 Tod's Hist. Raj., p. 581, quoted by Hig. gins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 404.

L'Antiquité Expliquée, vol. i.

or do not profess, to see it-must fall the whole Orthodox scheme, for upon this MYTH the theology of Christendom is built. The doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures, the Fall of man, his total depravity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the devil, hell, in fact, the entire theology of the Christian church, falls to pieces with the historical inaccuracy of this story, for upon it is it built; 'tis the foundation of the whole structure.'

According to Christian dogma, the Incarnation of Christ Jesus had become necessary, merely because he had to redeem the evil introduced into the world by the Fall of man. These two dogmas cannot be separated from each other. If there was no Fall, there is no need of an atonement, and no Redeemer is required. Those, then, who consent in recognizing in Christ Jesus a God and Redeemer, and who, notwithstanding, cannot resolve upon admitting the story of the Fall of man to be historical, should exculpate themselves from the reproach of inconsistency. There are a great number, however, in this position at the present day.

Although, as we have said, many Christian divines do not, or do not profess to, see the force of the above argument, there are many who do; and they, regardless of their scientific learning, cling to these old myths, professing to believe them, well knowing what must follow with their fall. The following, though written some years ago, will serve to illustrate this style of reasoning.

The Bishop of Manchester (England) writing in the "Manchester Examiner and Times," said:

"The very foundation of our faith, the very basis of our hopes, the very ncarest and dearest of our consolations are taken from us, when one line of that sacred volume, on which we base everything, is declared to be untruthful and untrustworthy."

The "English Churchman," speaking of clergymen who have "doubts," said, that any who are not throughly persuaded "that the Scriptures cannot in any particular be untrue,” should leave the Church.

The Rev. E. Garbett, M. A., in a sermon preached before the University of Oxford, speaking of the "historical truth" of the Bible, said:

1 Sir William Jones, the first president of the Royal Asiatic Society, saw this when he said: "Either the first eleven chapters of Genesis, all due allowance being made for a figurative Eastern style, are true, or the whole fabric of our religion is false." (In Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 225.) And so also did the

learned Thomas Maurice, for he says: "If the Mosaic History be indeed a fable, the whole fabric of the national religion is false, since the main pillar of Christianity rests upon that important original promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent." (Hist. Hindostan, vol. i. p. 29.)

"

'It is the clear teaching of those doctrinal formularies, to which we of the Church of England have expressed our solemn assent, and no honest interpretation of her language can get rid of it

And that:

"In all consistent reason, we must accept the whole of the inspired autographs, or reject the whole."

Dr. Baylee, Principal of a theological university-St. Aiden's College at Birkenhead, England, and author of a "Manual," called Baylee's "Verbal Inspiration," written "chiefly for the youths of St. Aiden's College," makes use of the following words, in that work:

"The whole Bible, as a revelation, is a declaration of the mind of God towards his creatures on all the subjects of which the Bible treats."

The Bible is God's word, in the same sense as if he had made use of no hu man agent, but had Himself spoken it."

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'The Bible cannot be less than verbally inspired. Every word, every syllable, every letter, is just what it would be, had God spoken from heaven without any human intervention."

"Every scientific statement is infallibly correct, all its history and narrations of every kind, are without any inaccuracy.”

A whole volume might be filled with such quotations, not only from religious works and journals published in England, but from those published in the United States of America."

1 The above extracts are quoted by Bishop Colenso, in The Pentateuch Examined, vol. ii. pp. 10-12, from which we take them.

2" Cosmogony" is the title of a volume lately written by Prof. Thomas Mitchell, and published by the American News Co., in which the author attacks all the modern scientists in

regard to the geological antiquity of the world, evolution, atheism, pantheism, &c. He believes and rightly too-that, "if the account of Creation in Genesis falls, Christ and the apostles follow: if the book of Genesis is erroneous, so also are the Gospels,"

CHAPTER III.

THE TOWER OF BABEL.

WE are informed that, at one time, "the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they (the inhabitants of the earth) journeyed from the East, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

"And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.""

Such is the "Scripture" account of the origin of languages, which differs somewhat from the ideas of Prof. Max Müller and other philologists.

Bishop Colenso tells us that:

"The story of the dispensation of tongues is connected by the Jehovistic writer with the famous unfinished temple of Belus, of which probably some wonderful reports had reached him. The derivation of the name Babe'

from the Hebrew word babal (confound) which seems to be the connecting point between the story and the tower of Babel, is altogether incorrect.”

1 Genesis xi. 1-9.

* The Pentateuch Examined, vol. iv. p. 268.